


Fruitful Adventures

by psyraah



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:19:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6084648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyraah/pseuds/psyraah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tetsurou's part-time job comes with many benefits, but the best of them has to be Hinata Shouyou.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fruitful Adventures

“What the ever-loving fu—fruit. Fruit.”  _Fuck_.  _Keep it professional, Tetsurou. You can do this._

_Why the fuck are there apples all over the ground????_

“There was a bit of an...accident,” says Ukai, looking  _very_  put-upon. “It’s just change of shift, too.” He sighs, rubbing his temples. “I’ll help out.”

“Nah, it’s all right, I’ll do it,” Tetsurou says with a sigh. His manager works hard enough as it is, running the grocery store by himself; the least Tetsurou can do is lessen the load a little. “Still, who the f—fruit decided to use apples to pave our fu—floor? ‘Cause I’m going to end up—”

“I’m really sorry!” someone squeaks. From behind the table where the apples had so peacefully been resting when Tetsurou had finished up last night, pops out the head of Hinata Shouyou. “I just—this lady dropped her wallet, but she’d almost left, so I had to hurry to get it back to her, but then I bumped into someone and it just—”

“Hinata, I already said it’s all right,” Ukai says with a shake of his head. “And don’t you have somewhere to be? Babysitting your sister?”

“Yes, but I can...I can help out here,” Hinata says, but his voice is small, and lacking the usual enthusiasm. And shit, Tetsurou knows what it’s like to stand on your feet for six or seven hours, and then have to worry about doing other crap. 

Plus, seeing Hinata deflate is almost like kicking a puppy. Almost—kicking puppies is less painful. 

(At least, it is for Tetsurou—a more representative, less-biased sample of people might include some who aren’t nursing stupid giant crushes on certain redheads.)

“It’s all right, I got it covered,” Tetsurou says, though the thought of carefully rearranging the fruit display into appearance of order is not appealing.

“Kuroo-san, I’m sor—”

“Hey, I said it was all right,” Tetsurou says, knocking his knuckles against Hinata’s forehead (‘ouch!’). “You should go look after Natsu.”

“No, but it’s my fault!” Hinata’s glaring up at him fiercely now. It’s adorable. Tetsurou wants to kiss that nose.

“Yeah, well, you can just…I dunno, just get me a chocolate bar next time, or something, ‘kay?” Smiling now, Tetsurou tugs on a single tuft of orange hair. He just can’t _not_ touch. “I’ll take care of it tonight.”

He’d do anything if it meant _that_ grin spreading across Hinata’s face.

“Kuroo-san, you’re the best!” Before Tetsurou can even react, Hinata’s hugged and released him, sprinting off with a wave over his shoulder.

And he’s _not_ blushing, he’s not. Tetsurou doesn’t blush. Especially not when he’s faced with a giant crush on his co-worker who he only sees for five minutes between their shifts, and at the occasional staff meeting. That’s not enough for a crush. Barely enough for him to say he even knows Hinata that well (except for that time Tetsurou drove him home after a meeting because his bike had had a flat tyre, or that one time Ukai had found a time to treat everyone to ice-cream).

Either way, it’s dumb, and it’s _childish_. And more to the point, Hinata probably doesn’t like him back. So really, it’s a waste of time even letting the thought, the feeling, run through his brain.

(Tetsurou spends the rest of the shift thinking of how Hinata’s arms had squeezed tight around his waist, and how he wishes he’d had the courage to return the embrace.)

* * *

When Tetsurou arrives at work the next day, the first thing that greets him is something smacking into his face.

He yelps, and the whatever-it-is falls to the ground with a _plaf_. Frowning (and frankly, slightly suspicious), Tetsurou bends down to inspect the object.

It’s a chocolate bar.

“For yesterday.” Tetsurou can damn well _hear_ the way that Hinata’s grinning, and looking up to see his friend looming over him confirms that suspicion.

“You really didn’t have to,” he says, straightening back up. Tetsurou can’t see himself, but he’s probably mirroring Hinata’s ridiculous grin; he can feel the strain on his cheeks.

“You helped me out! I can’t owe you like that.”

Tetsurou doesn’t say that he’d rather have a date than dairy, and just shrugs. “You’re my friend. You seemed kinda stressed anyway.”

Hinata nods. “Yeah, Natsu was sick last night, and Mum was worried, so I had to get home so I could help out.”

Tetsurou waves a hand. “Then it’s no biggie. But thanks anyway.” He unwraps the chocolate and stuffs it in his mouth. “You off now?”

“Yeah, Natsu’s still not feeling great, so I have to go early again.” Tetsurou tries to bury the disappointment; he _knows_ that these couple of minutes are all he gets. Hinata shuffles his feet. “Sorry,” he says quietly, talking to the floor.

“What’re you sorry for?”

“Wish I could stay for a bit longer, but…”

“Family’s important, and you’re being a good big brother,” Tetsurou interrupts, jogging Hinata with his elbow. “I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

Hinata’s face brightens a little. “Oh yeah. Um, still the night shift?”

“Yeah.” Though…Tetsurou could look at getting that changed. He could juggle some things—well, mostly his sleep schedule, but sleep-ins are _precious_ to him.

But, Tetsurou realises (and not for the first time), so is Hinata.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Tetsurou smiles back, and turns to start stacking some cans on the shelf.

“Yeah, you take care.”

There’s a million stickers to be plastered across plastic packages of jelly beans, and Tetsurou’s taking care of that when he hears the gentle _tup tup_ of footsteps. He looks up, and Hinata’s heading out. Grinning (he really can’t help it, not when Hinata’s got his hands wrapped around the straps of his backpack like a little kid, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet—that energy has always attracted Tetsurou), Tetsurou waves in farewell.

“Kuroo-san?” Hinata calls out.

“Yeah?”

“Um…” Hinata hesitates, then flashes a smile. “I hope you like the chocolate.”

* * *

Tetsurou is usually not up at this time on a Sunday. Sleeping well past noon is his habit when he doesn’t have school, but instead, here he is, standing in the clean store front, and the usual greeting of “welcome to the Ukai General Store!” seems so much harder to say when Tetsurou feels like he should be curled up in bedand blissfully unconscious. He’s got school shit to do once he gets home, so he’s grumpy about that. Plus in his sleep-induced haze this morning, he’d somehow managed to jam on the wrong pair of shoes, and after four hours of standing, his feet are _killing_ him.

But most of all, the whole reason _why_ he’s standing here instead of in a mountain of jelly-flavoured ice-cream (he’d had the _weirdest_ dream last week), had not shown up to work. After ten minutes of utter impatience following the start of his shift, Tetsurou had all but stormed up to Ukai to demand why Hinata wasn’t working his usual morning shift. Startled, his manager had replied with “he wanted to work in the evenings.”

Fuck.

Which means their conversations were _still_ stuck in their fucking pattern of five-minute gaps between shifts. Which means that Tetsurou _still_ has no fucking chance here.

And it’s that pent-up frustration (coupled with the fact that _fuck_ , he _really_ wants to be asleep right now) which has him almost pouncing on Hinata when he bounces through the door.

“Why’d you change your shift?” he grumbles, and Hinata’s eyes widen.

“Kuroo-san, I thought…did you just finish?”

“Yeah, I did, and I notice that you haven’t.” He shouldn’t be annoyed, least of all at Hinata, but he can’t help it. That’s the problem, isn’t it, with having a crush? You start to expect, you start to feel _entitled_ to having things go your way, and the reality of battering disappointment is that, more often than not, they don’t. “Why’d _you_ change your shift?”

Hinata hesitates, and Tetsurou just doesn’t have the patience for it today. He grabs Hinata’s wrist and starts dragging him to the break room.

“Kuroo, you can go home no—oh, Hinata, there are a few boxes out the back if you don’t mind—”

“He’s taking a five minute break,” he tells Ukai, and drags Hinata back into their break room.

(He ignores Ukai’s grumbled “but he only just got here.”)

“You changed your shift,” he accuses, and Hinata looks slightly offended.

“Yeah, so did you!”

“You weren’t meant to change your shift!”

“Neither were you!”

This has to be one of the dumbest arguments Tetsurou has ever had.

“No, you don’t get it, you weren’t—god, this is so dumb,” Tetsurou groans, running a hand through his hair. “Why’d you have to go and—now it’s all messed up again, and we’re _still_ not working the same shift.”

There’s a pause.

“Kuroo-san,” Hinata says after a moment, and there’s an inquisitive note to his voice. “Why did you want the morning shift?”

Tetsurou huffs out a breath, then takes the plunge. “It’s not that it’s the morning shift, I just wanted to be on a shift with you.”

“Oh.” Another silence _._ “Why?”

Oh god.

What is he even meant to say to that?

Turns out, nothing at all. Because after another moment, in which Tetsurou is wracking his brain for appropriate things to say that won’t sound creepy or weird, a warm hand finds its way into his own.

“Um.” Hinata’s voice is small, and when Tetsurou looks down at him, eyes wide, Hinata’s cheeks are flaming red. “Is this why?”

“I—” Tetsurou can’t seem to work his voice. This can’t be real. “Um. Yeah,” he finally manages, like the poet he is.

“Good. ‘Cause I like you.”

Tetsurou’s heart trips.

This really can’t be fucking true. Now _he’s_ blushing like an idiot. “Yeah, I like you too.” He squeezes Hinata’s hand gently, finds that it fits his perfectly. He’s grinning like an idiot, but Tetsurou doesn’t care. Not when the raging inside has finally settled into gentle bubbling, and Hinata’s hand is warm in his, and across Hinata’s face—radiant and wild and gorgeous—is a grin to match his own.


End file.
